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GameChanger [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:44
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that is as funny as a barrel of monkeys but that is
00:01:50
it he is the captain well you're as funny as a turd sandwich it's good to be seen and it's good to see you thanks for
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listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are drinking grapefruit double
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the summertime and this great Claremont craft beer was brought to us by our good
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yourself up a very fancy smancy t-shirt to help support the garage and that's enough of the business all right
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true grime Chino Hills California
00:03:37
1983 in the dark of night evil lurks around a quiet house at the top of a hill a sliding door was left unlocked
00:03:46
and evil makes its way inside the home a sleeping family are surprised and slaughtered one victim survives and
00:03:56
tells a story that doesn't fit the evidence found at the scene a suspect is quickly identified and the
00:04:03
man hunt begins Kevin Cooper is arrested convicted and sentenced to death for the
00:04:10
murders the evidence was overwhelming but was it suspiciously overwhelming did the police plant
00:04:19
evidence did they ignore evidence for more than 30 years Cooper has proclaimed his innocence from a cell on death
00:04:28
row can we trust the scientific results that were produced can we ignore coincidence after
00:04:36
coincidence after coincidence we will continue to present the facts and you decide if you think
00:04:43
this man is a murderer or a convenient suspect but remember once is happen stance twice is
00:04:53
coincidence the third time is enemy action is Kevin Cooper the enemy and were his actions
00:05:04
[Music] murder welcome back we got a lot to get into yes and we know that Kevin Cooper
00:05:17
was arrested for the murders of the Ryan family and young Christopher Hughes but
00:05:23
the trial Captain would be moved South to San Diego because of and this is as polite as I can put it anger in the
00:05:32
local community now the trial began on October 23rd 1984 during the course of this trial and
00:05:39
we won't go through everything regarding the trial because we have a lot of evidence that we want to get to later
00:05:47
but Cooper does decide to take the stand at his trial and he does admit this is where we know that he admits to being in
00:05:55
The Hideout house just 126 yards from the crime scene but he does deny having committed the murders he admits that he
00:06:05
escaped from prison he admits that he eluded uh law for law enforcement and he admits to being near the crime scene he
00:06:14
also admits to having some of his what he referred to as quote roll your own tobacco with him when he escaped now
00:06:22
when they found him he was on this boat allegedly trying to rape this girl does what does he claim on that front well
00:06:30
that he can just deny because he's not caught like red-handed let's say so the way that the way that this goes down is
00:06:40
this according to the to her he rapes her at knife point on her boat later she remember we said that they were already
00:06:50
looking for Kevin Cooper later she sees a wanted poster for Kevin Cooper and she
00:06:57
goes holy crap that's the guy that raped me so she calls and phones the authorities letting them know Hey Kevin
00:07:05
Cooper is either in this area or at least he was when he did this to me so he's not caught necessarily red-handed
00:07:13
for that he can just deny that now he's not going to be brought up on charges on
00:07:18
rape charges against this woman because they're going to be seeking the death penalty in these murder charges and
00:07:24
attempted murder of this young boy so while he is at trial Cooper he simply claims that he left The
00:07:33
Hideout house he went back down and these are his words quote I went back down the hill on foot at night in the
00:07:41
same manner as when I walked up the hill to The Hideout uh following my escape from this prison he states that along
00:07:49
the way he started stopping drivers asking them either for directions to Mexico or for a ride to Mexico now
00:08:00
here's one thing that I was awfully curious about if the because I can only I can only report what was presented at
00:08:09
trial I can't report without having speaking having spoke to his defense attorney I can't speak to their tactics
00:08:18
or what they tried to present at trial only what was presented at trial one thing I've often wondered about in this
00:08:25
case is did the defense attorney at any point do a call to action by the public and say hey did any can anybody confirm
00:08:34
this portion of Kevin Cooper's story were you a motorist that was driving that night and you were stopped or
00:08:41
flagged down by this man who you saw on foot and he either asked you for directions or for a ride because in my
00:08:49
opinion if if we could find some people to cooporate that portion of the story that might lead you to believe that he
00:08:57
is telling the truth and that yeah how did he get to Mexico right right so the prosecutor is going to claim that Kevin
00:09:06
Cooper murdered the family drove the vehicle to Long Beach dumped it there and that he hitchhiked to Mexico
00:09:15
again I don't see any this is on the reverse side of this on the opposite side of this right where's the
00:09:23
prosecutor presenting people that are willing to testify saying hey I drove this guy to Mexico
00:09:30
from Long Beach or I picked them up in Long Beach so the way that this goes down Captain is it's February 7th 1985
00:09:40
that the jury begins deliberation on February 19th 1985 the jury convicts Kevin Cooper of murdering Christopher
00:09:48
Hughes Douglas and Peggy Ryan and their daughter Jessica and also convicts him of attempted murder of Joshua Ryan yeah
00:09:57
and for this he's going to be sentenced to death yes so we go through that because what
00:10:03
has gone on with this case since 1985 is we have Kevin Cooper who is proclaiming his innocence of these
00:10:11
murders from his prison cell on death row and actually he's almost been executed there was one time I think it
00:10:18
was was it 2004 mhm he was hours away from his execution they they were going to gas
00:10:26
him within hours of of when they receive a phone call stating you know what we need to take another look at this we
00:10:33
have some things that we need to look at and that's what I want to do here Captain is look through some more of
00:10:39
this evidence that we didn't get to yesterday and take a good look at it and try to determine does this point towards
00:10:46
him being guilty do we have the right guy or has there been a murderer out there on the loose all these years for
00:10:54
30 years let's just list some of the pieces of evidence that we went through yesterday well the most damning piece of
00:11:01
evidence is Cooper's own words he admittedly is at the Hideaway house within yards of the murder scene yeah we
00:11:11
also have the cigarette butts that were found in the stolen vehicle from the Ryan's house yeah one being a regular
00:11:18
cigarette but one being a rolled cigarette we know that he rolls cigarettes he claims that he had tobacco
00:11:24
from the prison we also have his footprint or a footprint at the scene of the murders which kind of lines up with
00:11:34
the the shoes that they would give you in prison we also have the potential murder weapon you know we said that a
00:11:41
hatchet was found near the home as if somebody driving the stolen vehicle had just tossed the hatch Hatchet out the
00:11:50
window and be Beard's making a little sloppy and we we know that this is likely the murder weapon because it has
00:11:58
some of the vi victim blood on it what it does not have is fingerprints from Kevin Cooper on it we have smudges on
00:12:05
the hatchet but no fingerprints now the sheath to this Hatchet is found in The Hideout house where he admits to have
00:12:12
been staying we also have people that occupied that Residence at one time stating the hatchet came from this home
00:12:20
we also have a missing uh we have some missing knives that we didn't discuss yesterday there's some missing knives
00:12:26
according to the owners of this Hideout house that were supposedly at the home sometime before Kevin Cooper occupied it
00:12:34
for those couple days and since the murders they've not been able to find these knives again he could have just
00:12:40
tossed these out as well with the autopsy showing that the weapons used in these attacks would be a hatchet of some
00:12:48
kind or Axe and then some kind of knife so we have now missing knives the other thing that we have Captain is we have
00:12:58
the surviv the Lone Survivor the young boy stating that he saw three white men he also said possibly Hispanic but
00:13:08
what's reported most often is that he saw three white men and you brought up that he said maybe four as well
00:13:15
regardless um Kevin Cooper is a single individual right and he is not a white man uh he is not Hispanic nor would I
00:13:25
believe him to be mistaken for either of those description he's an African Aman man um later the
00:13:34
interesting thing here though is later little Joshua's story changes a bit where we have him telling changes a bit
00:13:43
yeah we have him saying that a little bit more than a bit my friend later his story becomes that the person that
00:13:52
committed this all he could see all Joshua could see his limited memory of the crime was seeing a shadow shadow
00:13:59
figure a dark shadow figure with possibly bushy hair now I will say Mr Cooper certainly had bushy hair yeah uh
00:14:08
and all those you can see it in his arrest picture when when they're walking him to the uh police car he's got very
00:14:16
bushy hair yeah see I wonder if he was just keeping this style cuz was just getting out of the 70s and maybe like he
00:14:23
was really into disco possibly I think uh he was into whatever hair that he could get in the prison at the time so
00:14:31
here's the strange thing though you have to wonder why does this boy's memory change okay well no I hate to laugh but
00:14:42
the the the thing to me is when you have you would think now now I'll go back and
00:14:47
say this boy was hit on the head we know that so the early questioning can we even believe any of that and if we're if
00:14:56
we're to believe any of that can we believe any of the story changing so dramatically and I just think they
00:15:03
almost cross each other out and you should just not view it as any evidence as at all I think you're exactly right
00:15:09
and the reason why I liken this to I've never been knocked out I've never had my
00:15:15
throat slit I've never been attacked in the horrible horrible manner that this Joshua boy was attacked in I've never
00:15:22
had to go through a tragedy or such a heinous crime as witnessing family members being killed I could only I
00:15:29
can't I can only imagine what that would do to someone let alone a boy that young
00:15:35
now what I had to kind of think about is my own perspective my own life experience and and I liken that to
00:15:42
having a a big surgery you know I've had a couple surgeries in my lifetime and when you're coming out from the
00:15:50
medication there's the there's these little pieces of memories that I have coming out from this medication and it
00:15:58
they're they weird memories they memories of you know I saw doctor touching you no I I saw a person or two
00:16:06
in the room but but then when I'm when I'm clearheaded lat later M I have a hard time even figuring out what time
00:16:14
that would have been what the person looked like how many people were in the room things of that nature and that's
00:16:21
what I see kind of with his story as well and I know people are sitting in their garage or their car right now
00:16:28
making fun of me thinking of every week my friend nothing tragic nothing crazy happened to me I I just trying to put it
00:16:36
into some get some kind of perspective from my end why this kid's story could change let's touch well the other reason
00:16:43
his story could change is it doesn't fit The Narrative of the police so let's just play Devil's Advocate and then they
00:16:50
go hey we have this guy we think he's responsible so now we need you to testify that you saw a single black man
00:16:57
commit these crimes and this is who you're going to point your finger towards or you don't even have to say
00:17:02
you saw a single black man because that's not what he says you can just say you didn't see three white guys commit
00:17:08
this crime right you know and you could help a young boy along with changing that memory by going look you've son
00:17:15
you've been through a lot you know you were your your family's been wiped out you were almost killed yourself you were
00:17:21
in so much pain you were in and out of Consciousness all night long what we think has happened here is that the the
00:17:29
people that you think were responsible that you think were in the home at the time of the murders were not people that
00:17:35
you actually saw in the home at the time of the murders these were Rescuers these
00:17:40
were people coming to your Aid later at a later time and you were going in and out of Consciousness during this time
00:17:48
that is where those memories were created let's talk about the sheath because that sheath was found in The
00:17:54
Hideout house now there's been people that have said the police might have planted that sheath why because they
00:18:02
searched The Hideout house and did not find that sheath upon the first search right it's kind of like the keys yeah so
00:18:09
the the problem I have with that I think that's a leap by by people on the outside I think that's that's a a leap
00:18:18
by people saying look they searched the house the first time if it was there in plain sight they would have found it
00:18:25
well I want to throw a couple things into the mix here it was the home the home was searched by
00:18:31
deputies first of all second of all at the time that they searched the home they may not know that this sheath that
00:18:40
came from a hatchet it's obviously from a hatchet is of any importance at all when you're doing this initial search by
00:18:47
let's go ahead and assume un inexperienced law enforcement agents deputies low guys on the totem pole
00:18:55
going into this house they may not have a clear understanding of what took place at the
00:19:01
murder scene right they didn't see a bloody Hatchet so they said well this doesn't matter you you send out deputies
00:19:06
to Canvas the area and look for obvious signs of evidence right that's not an obvious sign I agree with you there yeah
00:19:13
they they're looking for a a man covered in blood MH oh well we didn't find that
00:19:18
or we did not find him so what happens is later you have the medical examiner that says that look a lot of these
00:19:25
wounds were caused by either a hatchet or an axe well now all of a sudden a hatchet sheath becomes something of
00:19:30
importance two you have a civilian who found the hatchet covered in dried blood and had victim's hair on it yeah we have
00:19:38
finger prints but not Prints but smudges correct but so the other thing too is wasn't there a eye witness of a couple
00:19:46
um that was on that road or close to the road of the house and saw um three white
00:19:52
man driving a station wagon the the car that was stolen and this is big because this points to Kevin Cooper being
00:20:00
innocent because we have the Ryan's vehicle that was stolen and yes I know that I pointed out that he did have
00:20:06
enough time to steal the the vehicle go to Long Beach make his way to Mexico and
00:20:13
check into a hotel by 4:00 that afternoon he had enough time to physically do that the problem with that
00:20:20
is we have eyewitnesses saying that there were white men inside that vehicle we don't have any eyewitnesses saying I
00:20:27
saw single black man driving that vehicle let's talk about that car a little bit because that car is like I
00:20:34
said something that is very very tricky when you want to say that Kevin Cooper is guilty well let's just me you know to
00:20:40
be clear there's a husband and their wife they're in the car the husband believes he saw three individuals the
00:20:48
wife believes she saw four now I believe the husband was driving so I'd put a little more weight into what the wife
00:20:55
saw because she wasn't driving she had have to pay attention on that level we also have a situation Captain where we
00:21:02
have an eyewitness who states that they saw the station wagon the following day so we know that the the vehicle was not
00:21:11
found until about a week later right so where was the other person that saw the vehicle okay well let me kind of go
00:21:18
through this thought first M the the thought being this with with the vehicle not being
00:21:25
found until a week later we know where Kevin Cooper was during that time period we know he was already in Mexico right
00:21:32
so if we assume that he killed these people stole the vehicle dumped it in Long Beach he would have done that
00:21:38
before going to Mexico mhm what we don't know is where that car was for the next
00:21:44
few days the problem being now that there's a witness stating that that car was being operated the day after Kevin
00:21:53
Cooper says that he was already in Mexico right so it doesn't NE necessarily matter where the vehicle is
00:22:00
as long as it's not in Mexico I don't know that this witness has um stated who they thought was driving the vehicle at
00:22:08
the time that they saw it but again regardless it doesn't matter who was driving it because we know Kevin Cooper
00:22:14
could not have been driving it okay also further information further eyewitnesses
00:22:21
regarding this car there's a witness who states this is from a woman who states that she is scared of being ident ified
00:22:28
as this witness but is willing to testify under oath if necessary she states that she saw three white people
00:22:38
in the Ryan's car and they were driving pretty crazy all right they said that they almost crashed into her vehicle her
00:22:47
grandmother was with her that day she wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle that almost smashed into
00:22:54
them hours later this is after the murders were discovered the authorities broadcasted a description of the missing
00:23:02
car with its license plate so the person the person that's the woman and her grandmother MH they see this broadcast
00:23:12
they go out to the car they get the slip of paper from which they wrote down the
00:23:16
license plate number and they say it was exactly the same H and why do you think this is important
00:23:24
oh well this is really important because if we go back to the eyewitness the sole survivor
00:23:33
Joshua his early statements are I saw three white [Music] men this show is sponsored by better
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[Music] 2023 all right we're back Captain cheers to you Captain hey there was it was really great uh off the
00:26:02
record this week so if you want to check that out we did a kind of talked a little bit the update of Kena Jenkins so
00:26:09
check that out on Stitcher premium that was a highly demanded update highly requested so one piece of evidence
00:26:18
captain that we have not got to yet which I originally thought this could hold the whole key because I tell you
00:26:26
for the past week or so looking at this case I have been swayed Every Which Way I one minute I think he's guilty the
00:26:35
next minute he's innocent next minute stuff was planted nope he's guilty again yeah and like you said you sway every
00:26:43
way you go ah he's guilty he's innocent maybe OJ did it maybe it was Casey Anthony I'm not really for sure at this
00:26:49
point I'm very confused the thing that we didn't get to though is a piece of evidence that I don't think could have
00:26:56
been planted and and it is hair there was hair that was found in the little girl's hand she had was clutching some
00:27:07
hair when her lifeless body was found now I've heard and read this hair as being described as Blonde or brown hair
00:27:19
yeah remember I said yet earlier that one thing I don't like about this case is people presenting this case often
00:27:27
have an agenda they often want to sway you in their Direction and one thing I've noticed is this hair being
00:27:36
described as Blonde well guess what if she ripped if she ripped this hair in defense off of one of her attackers or
00:27:45
the killer mhm and it's blond hair well we know Kevin Cooper does not have blonde hair and actually he probably has
00:27:53
the furthest thing from what would be described as blonde hair so I wanted to know for certain what
00:28:01
color was this actual hair because like I said I think some people have an agenda and they describe things in
00:28:07
certain ways to sway you to their side this I found a picture of the hair it's not blonde hair I can tell there's no
00:28:16
way anyone ever should describe this hair as blonde hair now what I will say is it's appears to be brown hair to me
00:28:26
and not a light brown a a a pretty as brown as brown can be it's the most normal brown hair I've seen get
00:28:33
down Charlie Brown what I can tell you though I do not need a microscope I do not need a fancy degree or a laboratory
00:28:42
to compare hairs plucked from Mr Cooper's head to the hair that was found in this little girl's hands to tell you
00:28:50
that they're not the same hair I can I can from pictures of the hair found and from pictures of seeing him
00:28:57
Kevin Cooper I can tell you that that hair does not match that person you don't want to run this through like some
00:29:03
computer program or possibly call up somebody good friend FY Malik and and ask for a second opinion I I I'm telling
00:29:13
you I'm right on this it's not Kevin Cooper's hair and I think we can get back to that in just a little bit
00:29:18
because I do want to discuss this other guy what there's another guy yes there's
00:29:23
an there's another guy who is this guy well some people that point to Kevin Cooper being innocent have also pointed
00:29:31
to somebody else as a likely suspect okay okay so this is what we know about this this person turain on June 9th a
00:29:40
woman named Diana roer calls the sheriff's department okay and she tells the sheriff's department that her
00:29:47
boyfriend Lee Faro had come home in the early hours of that day okay comes home basically in the middle of the night
00:29:56
right all right he arrived at their home in an unfamiliar station wagon a vehicle
00:30:03
she identifies as a station wagon and she doesn't know she's never seen it before right she also says that he is
00:30:10
with some people who stayed in the car she doesn't know who these people are cannot identify them she said that he
00:30:17
came into the home he changed out of his uh overalls or bib overalls whatever you
00:30:23
want to call them she said that he left these on the floor of their closet mhm he was not wearing a t-shirt when he had
00:30:32
come home he left the house about he's wearing some overalls you know without a t-shirt he's
00:30:38
just peacocking all over the place that's how he arrived at the home correct she says that he left a short
00:30:45
time later and did not return for a long time okay now both this woman Diana and
00:30:52
her father both have concluded that the overalls were were were covered in blood
00:30:58
right two two eyewitnesses yes and so Diana turns she turns in this evidence to the Sheriff's Department M she gives
00:31:08
it to a deputy and she says hey look not only am I giving you what I believe to be blood covered bib
00:31:15
overalls but I'm telling you I think that my uh boyfriend Lee Faro I think that he was involved in those murders
00:31:25
she also stated that a bloody Hatchet found beside the road the hatchet that we've discussed matched a hatchet that
00:31:32
was now missing from her garage mhm like I said a hatchet could be found in almost any home so the police department
00:31:41
the sheriff's department they never tested the overalls for blood that were turned into them good job well I don't
00:31:50
know that all of them are to blame because what we have here these items were this item was thrown away in a
00:31:58
dumpster mhm okay so it was not tested nor was it given to Cooper's defense so phone logs would later back
00:32:09
up a Sergeant's story that he had retrieved them and made multiple attempts to turn them over to uh the
00:32:17
lead investigators right and why wouldn't they take them I I cannot answer for them well it's probably
00:32:23
because they have a suspect that's black so he's been he's been you know this problem's been brought to this person
00:32:30
who collected this this item and he's saying look all I can do is attempt to turn it over to investigators if they
00:32:38
don't want to do anything with it I can't make them now about this Furrow Guy Lee
00:32:45
Furrow he has a bit of a background he had actually been released from a state prison earlier that year he had been
00:32:52
part of what what has been dubbed and I should shouldn't have laughed about yeah
00:32:58
yeah I'm making you in sensitive prick he has been he was a part of a murderous gang okay that's what it's referred to
00:33:07
in the newspaper but he was given a short sentence in return for turning States evidence against the leader of
00:33:14
this gang who was I guess sentenced to death for this this murder that they were convicted of so Furrow told friends
00:33:23
that while he was a part of this gang he had killed a girl cut up body and thrown
00:33:28
her body parts into the kar River now this here's another bit thing about this Lee guy right the station wagon that
00:33:36
didn't turn up until about a week after the killings right this is near the home
00:33:42
of Lee's stepmother who lived in Long Beach right so okay back to these gang murder it's just one right from my
00:33:51
understanding it's the murder of one person yes the murder of one person but how many people were involved in the
00:33:56
murder of this one person um that is not clear but it's more than two well it would at least be Lee and this guy named
00:34:05
Clarence Ray Allen okay so so at least two yes the only reason why I bring this up is because we have it's one thing to
00:34:13
have criminal a criminal past right because we know that Kevin Cooper does he broke
00:34:19
into cars he broke into other things and but now we have a past of somebody that
00:34:26
Comm committed a murder or was at least involved in a murder right with a group of people yes and I'm assuming that it's
00:34:33
more than just him and Clarence Ray Allen because it's referred to as a murderous gang meaning a group of people
00:34:40
that have committed at least one murder now the the information that I have and this is a very squishy
00:34:50
unconfirmed speculative information squishy okay so this information is is that the gang leader was Clarence Ray
00:34:59
Allen and he had raised the same kind of horses the same kind of Arabian horses as the Ryan now remember they were not
00:35:09
only raising horses but they were training them and showing them as well MH so there's like I said squishy
00:35:17
unconfirmed evidence that Allen may have had previously threatened to kill Peggy
00:35:23
Ryan why that they had some kind of fight over a horse saale that had gone wrong that squishy that he he felt that
00:35:32
he was cheated um and that she was uh you know threatened threatened her life okay let me try to unpack this
00:35:41
a little bit so we have eyewitness that claims that he was possibly in their vehicle the night of the murders came
00:35:49
home roughly a little bit after the night at the time of the murders came home to change was an overall was
00:35:57
covered in blood these were never tested we also have the person that he lived with the girlfriend saying hey and also
00:36:05
the hatchet that is the murder Weapon quote unquote looks kind of like the hatchet that's missing from our house uh
00:36:11
also by the way we're into horses he also possibly sold well the gang leader the gang leader that he was supposedly a
00:36:20
member of might have been into these horses right and this gang that he was involved in also murdered somebody as a
00:36:28
gang so I mean it's just how many more things do you need to tie to this guy well there I mean there are there are
00:36:36
actually a few more things so there there is at least one eyewitness if not two or three eyewitnesses that claim to
00:36:45
have seen three white men at a bar at some point after the murders and they believed that at least one of them was
00:36:54
covered in what appeared to be blood like had blood on their clothing but people you know you would just assume if
00:37:01
you're out in public and you see somebody like that that it's you're not seeing blood it's paint or it's uh you
00:37:07
know maybe they were hunters and had it was animal blood so we have that statement we what we don't have from
00:37:14
those eyewitnesses is them saying one of those men was Lee Furrow we don't have that we just have three unidentified
00:37:22
Caucasian males at a bar one of them being covered in what was thought to be blood well we also have his girlfriend
00:37:29
saying he came back with this station wagon with other people in it and we also have the couple that says hey we
00:37:36
saw a station wagon with at least three white males in it well and another thing
00:37:41
against leao is this remember the vehicle that was being driven by the woman and her grandmother was in the car
00:37:49
as well and they said they almost got into an accident because the station wagon was driving so
00:37:54
wildly well she was later shown a photograph of Lee Furrow to which she would say I believe that guy matches the
00:38:05
description of the guy I saw driving the vehicle at the time so now we need to talk about the shirt though remember we
00:38:11
mentioned he came home Lee fur according to his girlfriend Diana comes home in the middle of the night he's not wearing
00:38:18
a shirt and he's got these overalls on that are covered in blood he leaves those at the house changes the clothes
00:38:25
and if we think that these three men are the same as the three men later spotted
00:38:30
at the bar he's getting cleaned up to go out for a celebratory drink after having
00:38:36
killed these people yeah we showed them a lesson after they screwed us on horses
00:38:42
well one big big piece of evidence against Kevin Cooper would be a t-shirt that was found okay so the problem with
00:38:52
this t-shirt though is we have Diana rer who is the girlfriend of Lee Furrow stating he comes home without a T-shirt
00:39:00
and oh yeah by the way the bloody t-shirt that was found beside the road leading from the murder
00:39:07
house mhm that was his shirt it matches a shirt that I had purchased for him at one time she states that it's a Fruit of
00:39:15
the Loom shirt uh with one of those you know it's a t-shirt with a breast pocket
00:39:20
right and she stated that she knew this to be his shirt because she purchased form right so how's this
00:39:29
against the big problem with this shirt though is it has blood evidence on it mhm okay and the problem with this
00:39:41
evidence is on the shirt it points toward Kevin Cooper his blood being on that shirt well I'll
00:39:49
smack my ass call me Susan so this is difficult because it's like you like you said said before you said earlier um you
00:39:58
know after so many times it can't be a coincidence anymore mhm but there it seems like there's as many coincidences
00:40:05
pointing towards Kevin as they are pointing to somebody else I agree with you but the but the the thing that
00:40:11
Cooper's not going to be able to shake is this t-shirt and I say that because the problem with this t-shirt and I I
00:40:18
think I called it yellow but it's I I see a picture of it and I think of it as yellow it's often described as a tan
00:40:25
t-shirt so if anybody out there knows about this case and I'm talking about the one and the same okay they're the
00:40:31
same shirt okay well now I don't trust you with that hair sample well if I showed you this picture you would say
00:40:40
that this shirt could be yellow anyway regardless of what color this shirt is the problem for Kevin Cooper is this
00:40:49
shirt contains his blood and it also contains the blood of Doug Ryan of the father right so
00:40:57
if this shirt was discarded near the crime scene and it has the suspect's blood Kevin Cooper and the victim's
00:41:03
blood on it he's looking pretty damn guilty at this point right this shirt is a big piece of contention for both the
00:41:12
defense and the prosecution and not so much at his trial at Kevin Cooper's trial but later at his appeals why
00:41:21
because they tested here's what Kevin Cooper States he States look they took my blood and at some point they put it
00:41:30
on this t-shirt okay they put my blood on this t-shirt it it didn't come from my veins
00:41:37
it didn't come from an artery it didn't come out of my body and go onto that shirt it went into a tube somewhere and
00:41:44
then from the tube it went onto the T-shirt right and therefore it was planted by law enforcement or
00:41:51
somebody and that's how they've put me behind bars and that's how they're going to kill me
00:41:57
the evidence to suggest that he might be right is this that later they test this
00:42:02
blood and there's this okay so they find EDTA right right in this sample okay what is this this is this is a
00:42:15
preservative that is used to preserve blood samples such as the one that was taken from Kevin Cooper years ago right
00:42:22
I think they found this in a couple of the samples with OJ as well well ooper states that the Eda that's found in the
00:42:31
blood on the on the shirt in that sample is proof that they took it from the tube that they tried to preserve my
00:42:39
blood preserve the sample and then they dumped it onto this shirt the problem with that is Eda is a
00:42:47
common compound found in hand creams laundry detergent and other everyday products so that being said if this
00:42:57
shirt had ever encountered any of these products like laundry detergent there would be some presence
00:43:04
of Eda found possibly in that sample and has the defense ever tested the shirt to
00:43:10
see if there's any other blood you know because you they can say we have two blood samples here but maybe there's a
00:43:18
third from my understanding and from looking at the shirt and from evidence produced from the shirt
00:43:26
I believe they've only found two kinds of Blood on the shirt one coming from Kevin Cooper and one coming from Doug
00:43:34
Ryan so where do we go from here well that's the problem because you're the problem the shirt when first presented
00:43:42
with this evidence of the shirt mhm you go okay this makes him guilty his blood was found on the shirt then years later
00:43:49
you go wait they found Eda in this sample right well then it's planted so he's innocent if it was planted he has
00:43:55
to be innocent or is there somehow that this guy killed these people and the police just thought they were doing the
00:44:02
right thing by making a case against him so well the Eda in my opinion actually doesn't clear anything up because as
00:44:13
much as it points toward it being planted it also points toward it well it could just be happen stance that it's
00:44:20
there yeah yeah I agree I really want to know when Joshua started changing his story because I think there's something
00:44:29
there you know if if you come out of this traumatic situation and you say hey I think it was at least three
00:44:38
individuals regardless of color that once you start changing the story to well I think it was you know one person
00:44:46
and it was a black man or a man of color so I think once you figure out where that story starts changing because
00:44:54
there's again there's so many for all the pieces of evidence pointing towards somebody there's
00:45:01
pointing towards somebody else as well well I here's one thing that I don't like about this case it's the racism
00:45:07
Factor okay I think that I think race and racism gets brought up in this case a lot because we have this individual
00:45:15
that might be wrongly convicted and he happens to be African-American right and what I here's the problem with that the
00:45:24
problem is that all this does is murky the waters all it does is confuse things and Cloud things in my opinion I don't
00:45:32
think that the police went out and sought a black man for this crime I think if they had any Prejudice about
00:45:41
them it was against Kevin Cooper not against an African-American man right and what I mean by that is they can
00:45:48
prove that he was near the crime scene roughly about the time the crime went down very near yes and so therefore for
00:45:56
I think that if there was any Prejudice it was against Kevin Cooper not against an a African-American man if that makes
00:46:02
sense M and so I think when people bring up racism and bring up this kind of thing it only clouds it doesn't help
00:46:10
anybody solve this any faster because the problem is we're running out of time this guy will be likely will be executed
00:46:20
at some point we stated that in the early 2000s he was hours away from being executed and if you allow something like
00:46:27
racism to get involved in this push that aside please push this aside because I think some of the evidence might be able
00:46:34
to point you to what actually happened here now we should we should mention too well I think what you're trying to say
00:46:40
is that they get a couple pieces of evidence right and it going against Kevin Cooper does not matter what color
00:46:50
his skin is it's just the fact that we have this heinous murder we're trying to pin it on somebody right and they got
00:46:56
cloudy in in that vision and had nothing really to do these heinous murders look
00:47:02
if I believe if Kevin Cooper was a white man this still would have happened the same way it happened oh I agree I think
00:47:09
that if police thought that I were in that Hideout house at that time that they would say you know what this is our
00:47:16
guy but right but the difference here is they wouldn't have to have the key eyewitness Chang their story so
00:47:23
dramatically now did we mention that he is a appealed this time and time again yeah and we well I think we have and I
00:47:31
think we've also mentioned that he has claimed his innocence throughout correct now one part of the appeals process
00:47:39
remember we talked about that hair that was found in little Jessica's hand yeah okay that hair was part of his appeals
00:47:47
because they wanted to test that hair to prove that it didn't come from Kevin Cooper and it didn't come from Kevin
00:47:54
Cooper we know know that to be the truth right here's the problem with this though the hair did not come from the
00:48:01
killer the hair what belonged to victims it was victim's hair that was in Jessica's hand so this kind of backfired
00:48:11
on his appeals because it didn't point to the killer at all didn't help find out who the killer was we already know
00:48:18
who the victims were well in this case is so difficult because we could have done four parts on just speculation and
00:48:24
debating that and that's not really what we're trying we're trying to get a little bit closer to the truth and I
00:48:30
think um you know anybody that has opinions on this case please go to our website true Crim garage.com and check
00:48:36
out the blog on this case well the thing the problem with this case is this Captain we could have discussed it four
00:48:44
or five hours but we have already we only recorded two hours of it it the the problem is each little point of evidence
00:48:54
is a discussion topic it's something that you could argue for or against the guilt of Kevin Cooper and when you start
00:49:03
pouring through these item by item by item it gets awfully lengthy we didn't want anybody to have to sit and listen
00:49:09
to us pour through each and every single item the reason being is that in my opinion let's throw this I want to take
00:49:19
this shirt the the shirt with the blood evidence found on it all right let's put
00:49:23
that in its own little compartment as planted evidence well no let's put that in its own little compartment for now
00:49:31
all the other evidence and there's lots of it none of it specifically names Kevin Cooper as having killed these
00:49:41
people however by the same token none of it exonerates him MH none of it excludes
00:49:50
him so there there is the big issue there's the big problem right there now now let's go back to the
00:49:57
shirt was Kevin Cooper's Blood on the shirt yes 100% yes how did it get there what did it come from a tube we don't
00:50:05
know did it come from his body we don't know well whoever put it on that shirt if it was planted I hope that they come
00:50:11
forward one day and say hey I did this and I was wrong it probably won't but they should well there's an individual
00:50:19
uh his last name is um I can't think of it right at this moment um but we we know it was there was a there was a man
00:50:27
that worked on this case uh that worked on some of the blood evidence and I will
00:50:32
say this there seems to be some shaky things going on regarding that operation whether this could have been
00:50:43
tampered with with it whether it was planted right there's some shaky business going on there and that makes
00:50:51
me not trust this shirt so much it makes me have a hard time trusting this shirt
00:50:57
and the best opinion I can give on this case and as far as the guilt of Kevin Cooper I'm not going to lie to you I
00:51:04
think there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that he might be guilty but I don't have anything to
00:51:12
pinpoint him 100% other than that T-shirt and I don't trust I don't know that I trust that evidence right I don't
00:51:20
trust a lot of the evidence I'm just going to break my part down real quick the the way I view it is you don't kill
00:51:27
a whole family to steal a car we have other people that are tied to the to the family have other possible motives and
00:51:37
as much speculation as there is out there again you don't kill a whole family steal a car you possibly kill a
00:51:46
whole family and steal their car because they did your gang wrong and and in the
00:51:52
autopsy when they when the coiner comes out and say says that they think that all these attacks were done within a
00:52:01
minute or so mhm that that points to me as evidence that this wasn't done by one
00:52:07
person or couldn't have been done with by by one person it would be if that medical examiner is right it would be
00:52:15
very very difficult in my opinion for one person to have committed all of these murders in such a short amount of
00:52:23
time as has been suggested by by the medical examiner the other thing that I take issue with is that the medical
00:52:31
examiner also suggests the autopsy suggest the use of multiple weapons the use of multiple weapons and not that not
00:52:40
to say that one person couldn't have entered the home brandishing multiple weapons however I just find it unlikely
00:52:48
I think multiple weapons to me points more likely to multiple asants before before we leave Captain I
00:52:57
want to wrap up with some words from The Lone Survivor from Joshua Ryan and his thoughts on this case he States I wish I
00:53:07
could remember I don't know if they think I have the answers or that it's in my head it won't come back to me Josh
00:53:16
says he doesn't remember seeing Kevin Cooper that night only a shadow and he also says quote I want to know if really
00:53:25
did it I couldn't live with myself knowing that there could have been a chance that he didn't do it that's not
00:53:35
[Music] right thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend till next week be good
00:53:50
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